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ed by streams issuing from the summit of the mountain; which, after forming numerous cascades, lose themselves among the trees and flowering shrubs. The ancient cypress-trees still exist, whose foliage overshadowed this spot when it was the abode of pleasure and of luxury.

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The protracted length of this article forbids us to enter into the authentic and curious details, relative to the history and progress of Moorish architecture, recorded in the History of the Mahometan Empire in Spain;' we can only remark that the modern Spaniards are indebted to their Moslem conquerors for their present mode of roofing their houses, and that the same attention to personal comfort and gratification was bestowed on the interior of the private Moorish dwellings, which we have seen so conspicuously displayed in the structure and arrangement of the Alhamrā. In Granada, we are informed that there was a garden attached to every house, planted with orange, lemon, citron, laurel, and other odoriferous trees and plants, whose fragrance purified the air, and promoted the health of the inhabitants. All the houses were supplied with running water: and, in every street, through the munificence of successive sovereigns, there were copious fountains for the public convenience, as well as for the performance of religious ablutions.

From the architecture and fine arts of the Spanish Arabs the transition to music is natural and easy. For this art they cherished the same passionate attachment which characterised the eastern Arabs, during the reigns of Almansur, Harun-ar-Rāshīd, and other khaliffs, who have been most celebrated for their encouragement of literature, the sciences, and the fine arts. Of the sovereigns of Moorish Spain, Abdurrahman, II. was the most eminent for his love of music; and, of his veneration of its most eminent possessors, we have a memorable instance in his riding forth from his palace to meet and welcome the illustrious musician Zaryab, who in the year of the Hijra 206 (A. D. 821.) came from Irak into Spain. Under this monarch's auspices, Zaryal founded the famous school of music at Cordova, which afterwards produced so many celebrated professors.

But, marvellous as were the effects of Arabian music, it is to be regretted that little is known with certainty, either of the dif ferent kinds of their melody, or of their rules for singing. The late learned and industrious historian of this art (Dr. Burney) has not taken the slightest notice of Arabian or of Moorish music; and the little we have been able to collect concerning this interesting topic, is, that the Arabians had four principal modes or harmonic phrases, which they termed roots; and to which they gave the names of different countries. These modes further had a certain number of derivatives, each adapted to one particular kind of poetry, or to the expression of one distinct passion. Thus the

termed Ishak, was that appropriated to love, and the Dougief: and their most learned accompaniments were con

fined to playing in the octave. There is a very striking resemblance between the Arabian gamut and that of the Italians, which renders it highly probable that the old mode of teaching music by what is usually called sol-faing, was borrowed from the Arabs, or Moors of Spain, whose notes are named, A la mi re; B fa pe mi; C sol fa ut, &c. We are, at least, indebted to the Arabians for the invention of the lute, which they accounted the most pleasing of all musical instruments, they also made use of the organ, flute, harp, tabor, and mandoline, a small species of guitar. This last mentioned instrument was a great favourite with the Arabian conquerors of Spain; who appear not only to have introduced it, but also the custom of serenading with it their mistresses, still retained by the Spaniards; on which occasion, the words of their songs, the airs of the music, and even the colour of their habits, were expressive of the triumph of the fortunate, or the despair of the rejected lover.' (Hist. of Mahom. Emp. in Spain, p. 296.)

Of the Moorish government, succession to the crown, army, and military tactics, we have a concise account in the work just cited; but on these topics there is the less occasion for remark, as a great similarity appears to have subsisted between the manners of the Moors in Spain, and those of the Arabians, which have so often been described. Hence we find the same generous hospitality, the same high resentment of injuries, the same devoted obedience to the khaliffs, and in domestic life, the same veneration for parents and for the aged; together with the same unqualified submission to the head of each family, which characterises the patriarchal times. From the interesting portrait, however, of the inhabitants of Granada, which has been drawn by the accurate historian Ibnu-l-Khatib or Alkhatib, it would appear that the manners of the Spanish Arabs were much softened by the cultivation of literature, and the arts.

We shall notice only that part of his account of the Granadian ladies, which we have taken the trouble to compare with those of some modern writers; who, professing to have consulted original authorities, have blindly copied each other, and have made the historian, who is remarkable for the simplicity and gravity of his narrative, to describe things and persons which never existed. We shall only premise that the representation of the Arabian author, as given us in the history of the Mahometan empire in Spain,' is a faithful version of the literal translation into Latin by the learned and almost proverbially correct Abbé Casiri.

According to Ibnu-l-Khatib, the women of Granada were handsome, and mostly of a middle stature, affable, and suffered their hair to grow to a considerable length. They were lavish in the use of the most fragrant perfumes, and their teeth were beautifully white; their gait was light and airy, their wit acute, and their conversation smart. In this age, the historian concludes, the vanity of the sex has carried the art of dressing themselves out with elegance, profusion, and magnificence, to such an excess, that it can no longer be called luxury,

but has become almost a madness.' (Hist. of Mahom. Emp. in Spain, p. 299.)

It is impossible for any reflecting mind to contemplate, without surprise, the very low rank which the natives of Arabia now hold, as a nation, in the republic of letters. Their climate has undergone no change; their religion, their government, their manners, and their sentiments generally, have undergone no change: what, then, can be the cause of the existing ignorance which prevails among the Saracens?' This is a question of no common interest and importance, both in a literary and in a philosophical point of view, which we have neither room nor leisure to discuss; and it would have been more satisfactory to us, if, instead of proposing this query as many learned men have done, they had applied themselves to its investigation and solution.

Long as our account has been of Mr. Murphy's splendid volume, it can convey but an inaccurate idea of it to our readers. The engravings are one hundred in number, and we have seldom seen so many and such various specimens of art executed in such a style of beauty, and with so much fidelity. It forms a valuable appendage to the works of Dawkins and Wood, of Stuart and Revell; and we trust that the proprietors will be remunerated for their spirited expenditure.

ART. V.-Notoria; or Miscellaneous Articles of Philosophy, Literature and Politics.

THE CARACCAS.

From the third volume of Humboldt's Personal Travels.

SCENERY OF SOUTH AMERICA.

When a traveller newly arrived from Europe penetrates for the first time into the forests of South America,nature presents herself to him under an unexpected aspect. The objects that surround him recall but feebly those pictures, which celebrated writers have traced on the banks of the Mississippi, in Florida, and in other temperate regions of the new world. He feels at every step that he is not on the confines, but in the centre of the torrid zone: not in one of the West India islands, but on a vast continent, where every thing is gigan tic, the mountains, the rivers, and the mass of vegetation. If he feel strongly the beauty of picturesque scenery, he can scarcely define the various emotions, which crowd upon his mind; he can scarcely distinguish what most excites his admiration, the deep silence of those solitudes, the individual beauty and contrast of forms, or that vigour and freshness of vegetable life, which characterize the climate of the tropics. It might be said that the earth, over

loaded with plants, does not allow them space enough to unfold themselves.The trunks of the trees are every where concealed under a thick carpet of verdure; and if we carefully transplanted the orchidae, the pipers, and the pothos, which a single courbaril or American fig tree nourishes, we should cover a vast extent of ground. By this singular assemblage, the forests, as well as the flanks of the rocks and mountains, enlarge the domain of organic nature. The same lianas as creep on the ground, reach the tops of the trees, and pass from one to another at the height of more than a hundred feet. Thus by a continual interlacing of parasite plants, the botanist is often led to confound the flowers, the fruits and leaves, which belong to different species.

We walked for some hours under the shade of these arcades, that scarcely admit a glimpse of the sky; which appeared to me of an indigo blue, so much the deeper as the green of the equinoctial plants is generally of a stronger hue, with somewhat of a brownish tint. A great fern tree, very different from the pollypodium arboreum of the West

Indies, rose above masses of scattered rocks. In this place we were struck for the first time with the sight of those nests in the shape of bottles, or small pockets, which are suspended to the branches of the lowest trees, and which attest the admirable industry of the orioles, that mingle their warblings with the hoarse cries of the parrots and the macaws. These last, so well known for their vivid colours, fly only in pairs, while the real parrots wander about in flocks of several hundreds. A man must have lived in those climates, particularly in the hot valleys of the Andes, to conceive how these birds sometimes drown with their voice the noise of the torrents, which rush down from rock to rock.

There is something so great, so powerful, in the impression made by nature in the climate of the Indies, that after an abode of a few months we seemed to have lived there during a long succes sion of years. In Europe, the inhabitant of the north and of the plains feels an almost similar emotion, when he quits even after a short abode the shores of the bay of Naples, the delicious country between Tivoli and the Lake of Nemi, or the wild and solemn scenery of the Higher Alps and the Pyrenees. Yet every where under the temperate zone, the effects of the physiognomy of the vegetables afford little contrast. The firs and the oaks that crown the mountains of Sweden, have a certain family air with those, that vegetate in the fine climates of Greece and Italy. Between the tropics on the contrary, in the lower regions of both Indies, every thing in nature appears new and marvellous. In the open plains, and amid the gloom of forests, almost all the remembrances of Europe are effaced; for it is the vegetation that determines the character of a landscape, and acts upon our imagination by it's mass, the contrast of it's forms, and the glow of it's colours. In proportion as impressions are powerful and new, they weaken antecedent impressions, and their strength gives them the appearance of duration. I appeal to those, who, more sensible of the beauties of nature than of the charms of social life, have long resided in the torrid zone. How dear, how memorable during life, is the land where they first disembarked! A vague desire to revisit that spot roots itself in their

minds to the most advanced age. Cumana and it's dusty soil are still more frequently present to my imagination, than all the wonders of the Cordilleras. Beneath the fine sky of the south, the light and the magic of the aerial hues, embellish a land almost destitute of vegetation. The sun does not merely enlighten, it colours the objects, and wraps them in a thin vapour, which, without changing the transparency of the air, renders it's tints more harmonious, softens the effects of the light, and diffuses over nature that calm, which is reflected in our souls. To explain this vivid impression, which the aspect of the scenery of the two Indias produces, even on coasts where there is little wood, it will be sufficient to recollect, that the beauty of the sky augments from Naples toward the equator, almost as much as from Provence toward the south of Italy.

While we take in at one view the vast landscape, we feel little regret, that the solitudes of the New World are not embellished with the images of past times. Wherever, under the torrid zone, the earth, studded with mountains and overspread with plants, has pre-served it's primitive characteristics, man no longer appears as the centre of the creation. Far from taming the elements, all his efforts tend to escape from their empire. The changes made by savage nations during the lapse of ages on the surface of the globe disappear before those, that are produced in a few hours by the actions of volcanic fires, the inundations of mighty floods, and the impetuosity of tempests. It is the conflict of the elements, which characterizes in the New World the aspect of nature. A country without population appears to the people of cultivated Europe like a city abandoned by its inhabitants. In America, after having lived during several years in the forests of the low regions, or on the ridge of the Cordilleras; after having surveyed countries as extensive as France, containing only a small number of scattered huts; a deep solitude no longer affrights the imagination. We become accustomed to the idea of a world, that supports only plants and animals; where the savage has never uttered either the shout of joy, or the plaintive accents of sorrow.

A man giving suck.-In the village of Arenas, on the road from San Fer

nando to Cumana, lives a labourer, Francisco Lozano, who presented a physiological phenomenon, highly calculated to strike the imagination, though it is very conformable to the known laws of organized nature. This man has suckled a child with his own milk. The mother having fallen sick, the father, to quiet the infant, took it into his bed, and pressed it to his bosom. Lozano, then thirty-two years of age, had never remarked till that day that he had milk: but the irritation of the nipple, sucked by the child, caused the accumulation of that liquid. The milk was thick and very sweet. The father, astonished at the increased size of his breast, suckled his child two or three times a day during five months. He drew on himself the attention of his neighbours, but he never thought, as he probably would in Europe, of deriving any advantage from the curiosity he excited. We saw the certificate which had been drawn up on the spot, to attest this remarkable fact, eye-witnesses of which are still living. They assured us, that, during this suckling, the child had no other nourishment than the milk of his father. Lozano, who was not at Arenas during our journey in the Missions, came to us at Cumana. He was accompanied by his son, who was then thirteen or fourteen years of age. Mr. Bonpland examined with attention the father's breast, and found it wrinkled like those of women who have given suck. He observed, that the left breast in particular was much enlarged; which Lozano explained to us from the circumstance, that the two breasts did not furnish milk in the same abundance. Don Vicente Emparan, governor of the province, sent a circumstantial account of this phenomenon to Cadiz.

It is not a very uncommon circumstance, to find, both among humankind and animals, males whose breasts contain milk; and the climate does not appear to exert any marked influence on the more or less abundance of this secretion. The ancients cite the milk of the he goats of Lemnos and Corsica. In our own time, we have seen in the country of Hanover, a he goat, which for a great number of years was milked every other day, and yielded more milk than a female goat. Among the signs of the pretended weakness of the Americans, travellers have mentioned the milk contained in the breasts of

men. It is however improbable, that it has ever been observed in a whole tribe, in some part of America unknown to modern travellers; and I can affirm, that at present it is not more common in the new continent, than in the old. The labourer of Arenas, whose history we have just related, is not of the copper-coloured race of Chayma Indians: he is a white man, descended from Europeans.

Moreover, the anatomists of Petersburg have observed, that among the lower orders of the people in Russia, milk in the breasts of men is much more freqnent than among the more southern nations; and the Russians have never been deemed weak and effeminate.

There exists among the varieties of our kind a race of men, whose breasts at the age of puberty acquire a considerable bulk. Lozano did not belong to this class; and he often repeated to us, that it was only the irritation of the nipple, in consequence of the suction, which caused the flow of the milk. This confirms the observation of the ancients, "that men, who have a small quantity of milk, yield it in abundance, when their breasts are sucked." These singular effects of a nervous stimulant were known to the shepherds of Greece; those of Mount Oeta rubbed the dugs of the young goats, that had not yet conceived, with nettles, to make them produce milk.

When we reflect on the whole of the vital phenomena, we find, that no one of them is entirely isolated. In every age examples are cited of young girls not marriageable, or women withered by age, who have suckled children.— Among men these examples are infnitely more rare; and after numerous researches, I have not found above two or three. One is cited by the anatomist of Verona, Alexander Benedictus, who lived toward the end of the fifteenth century. He relates the history of an inhabitant of Syria, who, to calm the uneasiness of his child, after the death of the mother, pressed it to his bosom. The milk iramediately came with such abundance, that the father could take on himself the nourishment of his child, without assistance. Other examples are related by Santorellus, Paria, and Robert, bishop of Cork.The greater part of these phenomena having been noticed in times very remote, it is not uninteresting to physi

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